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Mormon Stories Podcast

251: Grant and Heather Hardy - Book of Mormon Scholarship Pt. 2

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2011

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this 2-part discussion, KC Kern (BookofMormonOnline.Net) speaks with Dr. Grant Hardy and his wife Heather Hardy. Grant Hardy is Professor of History and Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. He has a B.A. in Ancient Greek from Brigham Young University and Ph.D. in Chinese Language and Literature from Yale. He has authored Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History; The Establishment of the Han Empire and Imperial China; and Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide, as well as the Introduction for Royal Skousen’s recent Yale edition of the Book of Mormon. He has also edited The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition; Enduring Ties: Poems of Family Relationships; and the Oxford History of Historical Writing. Vol. 1. His 36-lecture DVD/CD course for The Teaching Company entitled “Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition” will be released this summer. Heather Hardy has a BS and an MBA from Brigham Young University (she says the latter seemed like a good idea when Grant was studying Greek; someone was going to have to support the family someday). She worked in university finances at Yale and then as the scholarship coordinator at BYU for a couple of years. She has published articles in Dialogue and the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, but is mostly a full-time reader masquerading as a stay-at-home mother. Grant and Heather have been married for 28 years and have been talking to each other non-stop the whole time. This interview is broken in two parts: Part 1: Introductions, early personal, academic, and scholarly experiences, and approaching the Book of Mormon as world scripture and literature. Part 2: Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide, thoughts on narrative structures, phraseology, historicity, evidences, anachronisms, Book of Mormon usage in the LDS Church, and on balancing faith and reason.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:22.4

MormonsStories.org. That brings us to understanding the Book of Mormon. Part of it is trying to put down the

0:33.3

things that we had learned by reading this, and a lot of it is things that Heather has learned. This

0:38.6

is the way that we work together oftentimes. I go up to work pretty early in the morning. I

0:44.0

taught early morning seminary for three years. Actually, at the same time, I was on the high

0:47.4

council. It seems like some nights we're there for long meetings and people would say, so we're

0:51.6

just going to stay over because you've got to be back in the same room with a tie-on in five hours.

0:56.3

I guess early in the morning, I don't teach seminary now, but I get up early in the morning, go to work, and then usually I call Heather

1:02.8

two or three times sometimes. I have a flexible schedule where we can talk for 15 minutes or 45 minutes sometimes, and she's

1:11.4

always telling me about things she's read and about ideas she's having in the Book of Mormon. I was at a conference

1:18.6

once, a rather small informal conference, and I was sitting next to Terrell Gibbons, and we were supposed to

1:24.2

introduce the person next to us. Terrell, before we'd started, said, what have you got in your

1:29.6

lap there, and I explained, and then when he was introducing me, he said, this is Grant Hardy, and he's from

1:35.3

University of North Carolina, Asheville, and does this in the Reader's Edition, and he said, and Grant is the

1:39.9

only person I know who takes notes when his wife talks. That's what happens. Heather talks to me on the

1:45.9

phone, and I'm usually trying to do something in Chinese history of world history of Buddhism, or something like that.

1:50.5

No, it always gives me his full attention, I'm sure.

1:54.5

Anyway, and then when you start to say interesting things, I take notes, and then part of my job in this

2:01.4

book was to try to take these conversations and these notes and to try to put them into a coherent, concise form,

2:08.9

and so I would write a draft of a chapter and bring it back home, and Heather would look it over.

2:14.1

She's actually a fine reader, critical reader, and she's a terrific editor, and I sometimes take

2:20.9

in these pages to show my students for whom I'm trying to do the same thing, and there's red all over

...

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